dozoku and the ideology of descent in rural japan

Dazoku and the Ideology of Descent in Rural Japan1

KEITH BROWN University of Pittsburgh

This paper examines the ideology of descent as it obtains in the membership recruitment of d6zoku groups in one Japanese hamlet. WhiJe the genealogies ofthe d6zoku show a heavy pre- ponderame of agnatu links, the ideology o j the people with respect to descent is cognatic. The conclusion is drawn that there can be independent variation between the phenomenal order of a society and the id&ional order of ils people. With respect to descent in Japan this means that phenomenally the genedogies of d6zoku groups can enhibil a high proportion of either patri- lined or matrilineal links, depending MI varying historical and endronmental settings, while the idwlogy for cognalic descent remains constant. This is possible because descent is not the only criterionjor d6zoku membership recruitment.

APAN has long been noted, and often envied, for the dominance its men reputedly have maintained in their society. This dominance has been re-

ported for kinship as well as for many other spheres of social behavior. For example, numerous descriptions of Japanese customs have related how the patriarch has traditionally ruled his family and household with autocratic power. We are told that the successor and heir to the patriarch is selected by the principle of male primogeniture. Furthermore, it has been assumed that descent groups, where they exist, are constituted by apatrilineal rule of descent.

Until recently the only inconsistency in the descriptions of this seemingly male-dominated patrilineal kinship system has been the bilaterally symmetrical Eskimo-type kinship terminology (Norbeck and Befu 1958; Befu and Norbeck 1958). However, within the past few years several other qualifications have been added to this interpretation of Japanese kinship: (1) In the face of practical exigencies, inheritance and succession practices show many exceptions to the ideal of male primogeniture (Befu 1962). (2) The personal kindred in Japan, which is present even in communities with the supposedly patrilineal descent groups, is, of course, bilateral (Befu 1963). (3) The head of the household is not all that powerful, and is himself controlled to a considerable extent through a technique that Vogel has aptly labeled “the art of husband manage- ment” (1963:200).

To this list I propose that a fourth item be added: the Japanese descent units, called ~ ~ Z O R U , ~ are constituted by a cognatic, not patrilineal, rule of descent. To demonstrate this point I will examine the descent rules employed in one community where several viable dbzoku groups are present. The community, a rural hamlet called Nakayashiki, is in Iwate prefecture in the northeastern part of Honshu, where dbzoku groups are considered to be the most prominent in Japan. This is a study of the situation in Nakayashiki as it existed at the time of my field work (1961-1963). It will in no way attempt to reconstruct dbzoku as it existed in its supposedly more pristine form in the past.

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The proposition that the consanguineal kinsmen of a dbzoku unit are constituted by a cognatic rule of descent derives more from a different ana- lytical approach than i t does from any unusual ethnographic characteristics discovered in Nakayashiki. The analysis here is based upon two distinctions that have had long traditions in anthropological theory. One is that succession and descent are not necessarily coincident (e.g., Radcliffe-Brown 1924: 22). The second is that there may be independent variation between what Good- enough calls the phenomenal order of a society and the ideational order of its people. In reference to the phenomenal and ideational orders Goodenough states that

similar, but never identical, events occur over and over again and are therefore isolable as typea of event and patterned arrangement. Certain typea of arrangement tend to persist and others to appear and reappear in fixed eequencm. An observer can perceive this kind of statistical patterning in a commJlnity without any knowledge whatever of the ideas, beliefs, values, and principles of action of the community’s members, the ideational order [1964: 11-12].*

Dbzoku has been defined as “a hierarchically organized corporation of families patrilineally related (fictively or otherwise) in which the stem and its branches are mutally bound by complex relationships of reciprocal obligation” (Befu 1963: 1331). When describing only the phenomenal order of Nakayashiki dbzoku, such a definition is appropriate. That is, the genealogies of the dbzoku contain a very high proportion of agnatic, or patrilineal, links.

The inference drawn from observations of only the phenomenal order of behavior has therefore been that the ideational basis for dbzoku is also patrilineal. Such is not the case, however. When attention is focused on the norms, values, ideals, beliefs, and organizing principles-the ideational order-the conclusion must be that dbzoku descent rules are cognatic and not patrilineal, This conclusion is based primarily on the fact that in the ideology of the Nakayashiki people, daughters by birth have rights equal to those of their brothers for membership in their natal dbzoku.

Nevertheless, for many reasons unrelated to descent the proportion of daughters taking the option for membership is much less. This is possible because descent is cognatic, not unilineal, and therefore does not operate alone as the only restrictive or operational criterion for membership in the d6zoku group. Furthermore, the proportion of men to women taking the option for membership in the dbzoku is affected by factors outside the ideational order, e.g., ecological, social, and economic factors, which intersect with the ideology in particular historical circumstances to bring about the phenomenal structure that is known as dbzoku.

It will be necessary in this paper to show first of all that descent as a value is significant in the ideology of the Nakayashiki people. It will also be necessary to show just what the nature of the value for descent is, and how this operates in conjunction with the rest of the ideology and other factors to bring about the formation and continuation of dbzoku groups.

This analysis of the Nakayashiki dbzoku, with their preponderantly patrilineal genealogies and a cognatic ideology of descent, does not imply that

BROWN] Dijzoku b Descent Ideology in Japan 1131

a lack of coincidence in the phenomenal and ideational orders of a society and its people is necessarily a source of tension, conflict, disorganization, or social and cultural change. Moreover, no attempt will be made here to give priority either to the phenomenal order or to the ideational order in their development and change. Suffice it to say that with respect to descent and dbzoku in Nakayashiki, this lack of consistency appears to have existed for some time.

Furthermore, i t should be noted that this inconsistency is between analyti- cal systems, i.e., between the phenomenal and ideational orders, and not in the behavior of the Nakayashiki people themselves or their culture. That is, while the ideology, or culture, provides the basis for flexibility and diversity in social systems in variable and changing environments, it is also internally consistent with respect to descent and dbzoku organization. The people of Naka- yashiki, like people everywhere, make decisions and act on the basis of their ideals, beliefs, and values and their perceptions of the world around them. As their world varies or changes, so may their decisions and behavior also vary or change, without any immediate change in their ideals and values.

CONSTITUENT UNITS

The constituent unit of any dijzoku is the household of a corporate stem family." Usually in Nakayashiki all living members of one stem family will constitute one household. However, there are instances where the household and the stem family are not entirely coincident, and they must be analytically considered as different social entities (Cornell 1956: 159). For example, occasionally some members of a stem family, such as the unmarried sons who work or attend schools in Tokyo, will be living in another household. Also, some members of the household may not be members of the same stem family. Before the land reform, several of the larger landholders in the area included servants among their household members. Now, however, few households include nonkin members. At times, collateral kin of the stem family will join its household, but this is rarely anything more than a temporary accom- modation until better arrangements can be made.

Ideally, one child in each generation remains in the family household, takes a spouse, and has children, one of whom will in turn stay in the household to perpetuate the household and family line, ad infilzitum. Also ideally, the one who remains in the household to perpetuate the family line is, among farmers, the eldest son, but the strength of this norm is not great and exceptions to male primogeniture are not infrequent (Befu 1962). If the eldest son does remain in the household, he will inherit the family estate and succeed his father as head of the household and family. A bride will be found for him in another village, and she will come to live in his household and take the surname of her husband and his family.

If there are no sons, or if for some reason i t is decided by the family that none of the sons will remain in the household, a daughter will stay to perpetuate the family and household line. If there are several daughters, this role will normally be assumed by the eldest daughter. A husband will then be

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adopted for her by her parents. He will come to live in their household and take their family name. He then becomes the heir to his wife’s family estate, and he succeeds her father as head of the household and family. Note that it is a daughter who perpetuates the family line when there are no sons, not a brother of the deceased head or some other patrilineally related male.

If there are no children, a couple will adopt an infant, a youth, or a young adult. A spouse is then secured for the adopted member when he or she reaches an age appropriate for marriage. The dominant ideal is that the household and stem family must continue through an infinite number of generations (Ariga 1956a: 202). The ideal that the eldest son should inherit and succeed is secon- dary to this pervading value. In some cases it may be detrimental to the wel- fare of the people involved if the eldest son succeeds the father and inherits the family estate. In such situations, if the continuity and prosperity of the household and family can be more adequately guaranteed by someone other than the eldest son, decisions alternate to male primogeniture are reached with a minimum of discordance.

All of the siblings of the child who remains to perpetuate the household and family line eventually must leave the household and ultimately lose their membership in its stem family. In a sense they are “excess children.” Most excess daughters marry into other farm households and families, although more and more they want to attend high school, or even college, so that they can marry into city households. Nevertheless, whether they marry into farm or city households, their livelihood is assured by their membership in the household into which they marry. Their membership in the natal family and household is lost, and its responsibilities to and claims on them are greatly reduced.

Similarly, some excess sons marry into other households as adopted husbands (mzcko-ydshi) and lose their membership in the family of their birth. However, because of the preference for male primogeniture, the opportunities for excess sons to marry into established households in this manner are not many. In Nakayashiki, a hamlet with 31 households, four (11 percent) of the 38 married men were muko-ybshi. This figure must not be taken as representative; it will vary with occupation and other characteristics of any given community. In some situations, for example, i t is beneficial for the household if a daughter who has had long training at home in a particular skill can remain to carry on the family occupation. Her brothers, on the other hand, must leave to find outside employment more appropriate to their sex. In the communities with many such households a relatively high percentage of adopted husbands will be found, as compared with the farm communities near Nakayashiki.

Many excess children who cannot or do not want to marry into other households and families go to the urban industrial centers to find jobs. Tokyo has absorbed a large number of the excess children from Nakayashiki, and since these migrants are, for all intents and purposes, soon lost to their family and kinsmen in the rural hamlet, they need not concern us further here (see Norbeck 1965 for an interesting account of one such migrant).

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BRANCHING One alternative open to excess sons and daughters is to find some means of

subsistence in the neighborhood of their natal family. They then can build a house and begin a new family there. These new branch households are called bunke, or bekka, and the household of the natal family accordingly assumes the role of main household, which is called honke. The relationship between the main household and the branch household is the basic tie in the dbzoku. Branching is, therefore, the means for adding new members to the dbzoku group. Because the focus of this paper is on the descent principles that are operative in dbzoku membership recruitment, it is necessary to examine this process of branching in some detail.

There are many reasons for establishing branch households; moreover, the economic resources that are made available for the subsistence of the new family can come from a variety of sources. The example most frequently cited in the literature is that excess sons, i.e., junior brothers of the primary heir and successor in the main household and family line, take some small portion of the family estate as their share in the inheritance. With this small bequest, perhaps one fifth or so of the main family’s estate, they set up an independent household. They also, if necessary, supplement their income by other means. They may provide labor for their main household, for example, in return for its patronage.

Excess sons have also been able to acquire land or other economic resources through their own eff orts, without any assistance from their natal household (Norbeck 1961:307). They can do so by learning a craft or trade, such as carpentry, or by working as village laborers and handymen. Some have become tenants of their own main family (honke) or of nearby landholders. In any case, if they establish their new branch in the neighborhood of their natal family’s household, they will join its dbzoku.

As for daughters, on the other hand, the assumption held by people studying this system has been that most will ideally marry into other households and will therefore be lost from the dazoku of their natal family. Consequently, branch households will be established exclusively by excess sons. From this assumption follows the idea that dbzoku is a patrilineal descent group.

However, some excess daughters also establish branch households with membership in the dbzoku of their natal families (Ariga 1956a:206). Such cases are frequently found in response to definite problems. One such problem is what to do with a daughter who is weak, sickly, deaf, deformed, or just generally unattractive. Her family will certainly have a difficult time in arranging a marriage for her. They therefore may have to take serious measures to relieve themselves of her support and to enable her to lead a somewhat normal married life. They often can entice a young man, most likely a junior son from a poor family, to marry her as an adopted husband if a house and some land are promised the new couple. Frequently the new house is built close to that of the daughter’s natal family so that it can give the new couple any assistance they may need. If the family cannot afford to give sufficient land

1134 American Anthropologist [68, 1966

for the new household’s subsistence, they will use what social contacts they have to find additional employment for the adopted husband, possibly at the local landlord’s house or another nearby place. In any case, the adopted husband assumes the family name of his wife and becomes the head of her new household. If this branch household is situated in the same neighborhood, it will become a full member in the dbzoku of the daughter’s natal family. Such branch households are established not only for handicapped daughters, although that may be the more prevalent case, but also occasionally for handicapped excess sons. A handicapped son, or his family, can frequently persuade a girl to marry him if he can promise her that they will live in their own independent house, where no overbearing mother-in-law will be resident.

Not all branch households established by women are the result of having a handicapped daughter. A father may build a house and provide some land for a favorite daughter whom he wants to keep close by. This enables her to avoid the very trying experience of being a young bride under the watchful, and sometimes tyrannical, eye of her husband’s mother and family. Her husband will, in such cases, take her family name, and their new household will join the dbzoku of her natal family.

There is another sort of situation in which daughters frequently make branch households; there are no instances of this particular kind of branch household in rural Nakayashiki, but an examination of it is instructive of the variety of situations that can lead to daughters establishing branch households with membership in the dbzoku of their natal family. Some business establish- ments in Japan have traditionally had women managers. An inn or tea house, for example, will frequently have as its manager a woman from the family that owns and operates it. Therefore a daughter, who is raised in the house and learns its way of doing things, rather than a son’s wife, who will have to marry in from outside, succeeds the proprietress when she retires. The daughter and her adopted husband inherit the family estate and its occupation, so all sons, including the eldest, must leave the family and its household and pursue other occupations.6

And from time to time daughters other than the successor, i.e., excess daughters, establish branch households that thereafter practice the same occupation as that of their natal family. In such cases they use the business name of their main household and enter into its dbzoku. They also display the em- blem (nbren) of that dbzoku in front of their new place of business, thereby identifying themselves with the main establishment and its other branches. Therefore, if one looks a t the genealogy of such a merchant dbzoku, i.e., at the phenomenal order of behavior, the temptation might be to infer an ideology of matrilineal descent. The kinship ties joining the various units in the dbzoku will be preponderantly uterine, both in the links a t the point of branching and in the lines of succession thereafter.

By making such an inference, one can postulate three quite different descent systems for Japan: the matrilineal dozoku among some of these merchants, the patrilineal dbzoku in Nakayashiki and other rural areas, and the

BROWN] Ddzoku b Descent Ideology in Japan 1135

bilateral kinship system in the communities without any descent groups (kd-gumi-type communities) .‘J However, when the ideational order is the point of focus, a quite different picture develops.

DOZoKU MEMBERSHIP RECRUITMENT

There are three criteria for membership in a Nakayashiki dbzoku: the fact of branching, residence, and descent. All the members of any dbzoku are related to one another in a network of main and branch household ties. That is, all the households in any dbzoku can trace their connection to the others through a series of branchings. Branching creates between the main household and its branch households a relationship that persists, ideally, for an infinite number of generations. The fact that one household is a branch of another places them in a relationship that has significance to the villagers, again ideally, from that time on. Households that absorb the excess children who marry out or otherwise do not make new branches are not included in such a perpetual relationship.

But not all branch households are included in the membership of the dbzoku. What keeps some out of the dbzoku is a residence requirement. Households established by excess sons who go to Tokyo, for example, or to other distant locations are in a general sense considered to be branch households, though such relationships, without local or neighborhood ties, will normally die out (Ariga 1947:16). However, because they are not within its more or less clearly defined territorial limits, the new households of these emi- grants do not join the natal dbzoku. The territorial extent of different dbzoku may vary with several factors, such as occupation, hamlet boundaries, and the topography of the area. In Nakayashiki dbzoku membership is limited to households in the hamlet or the immediately adjacent hamlet. A ten-minute walk separates the most distant members of any of the Nakayashiki ddzoku. New households established outside this territory will not become members of the ddzoku, even though those that are not too far away may enter into very strong main-branch relationships with their natal household.’

One Japanese scholar (Nakano 1962a, b) has argued that a t least in some parts of pre-Meiji (1868) Japan, descent, the third criterion for membership, was not an essential element in the membership recruitment of dbzoku units. He has suggested that once a branch household was established, any member of the household (ie)-consanguineal and nonconsanguineal alike-had equal rights to full membership in the dbzoku group. Even servants, if they were members of their employer’s household, could make branch households with full but low-status membership in the employer’s dbzoku. I t is possible that even in rural Nakayashiki in pre-Meiji times, descent was less important as a criterion for membership in dbzoku groups.

However, during the Meiji era (1868-1911) the government actively attempted to standardize many family and kinship customs in Japan by following an idealized samurai class model. The Meiji Civil Code (1898) is one prod- uct of that attempt (Goode 1963:325-328; George 1965:509-516). For

American Alttlzropologist [68, 1966

edample, i t made male primogeniture a legal requirement for all families, and in Nakayashiki the succession practices changed from eldest child (me katoklc) to eldest son. The edicts from the national government also emphasized consanguineal relationships in family and household (ie) membership and the establishment of branches by those consanguineal members. Thereafter consanguineal and nonconsanguineal branch families and households were legally distinguished.

These legal prescriptions might have initiated or strengthened the value of descent in rural Japan, Unfortunately, such changes in the ideational order of the people in Nakayashiki are not easy to infer from the primarily phenomenal- order data available on the hamlet for earlier time periods. This whole question of membership criteria begs for more study on the history of descent as a value in Japan. It also needs more historical information on branching as a process that creates a special kinship tie of indefinite duration.

It is obvious in modern-day Nakayashiki, however, that descent is one of the essential criteria for full membership in a dbzoku. An examination of two features of dazoku provides the evidence for such a statement. One is the status of those households that are attached to a dbzoku but considered by the villagers to be lacking any descent connections with that ddzoku. The second feature is the status of those households that were once full consanguineal members of the dbzoku but for some reason or another have had their descent line from the common ancestor of the dbzoku broken.

Households that lack the descent qualifications to become dbzoku members occasionally attach themselves to some dbzoku in their neighborhood for the mutual benefits such an attachment can provide. This can happen only if they have no natural dbzoku of their own in that neighborhood. Many such households had a founding ancestor who was an indigent, wandering the countryside looking for someone who would take him in as a servant or laborer. After many years of devoted service he would be rewarded by his benefactor with a house and possibly some land on which to establish a branch household. Because he would not be near his own natal dbzoku, he could request permission to join his master’s d6zoku. If such a relationship was acceptable, his household would be admitted on a probationary basis. The villagers say that such a household is edashi taigu-like a d6zoku member. However, as long as it is recognized by the villagers that such a household does not have the proper descent connections to the dbzoku, i t cannot become a full member. Its attachment to the dbzoku is dependent on the good relations it maintains with the dbzoku, and if i t comes into opposition with one of the regular members, or if it consistently violates the norms of the group, its attachment is severed. The villagers justify such an expulsion by saying that the ousted household was not a real member anyway.8 The “blood” relationship between families sharing descent from a common ancestor cannot be broken, but the relationship with these fictive members who become attached to a dbzoku can be, and occasionally is, b r ~ k e n . ~

Therefore, in contrast to the regular members, who satisfy the three criteria of descent, branching, and residence, the attachment of these fictive members

BROWN] Dbzoku & Descent Ideology in Japan. 1137

to the dbzoku cannot be taken for granted. They must continually prove and renew their relationship with it by providing labor and other services for its activities or the activities of some of its regular members. The attachment to the dbzoku is not inherited but must be earned every generation (Nagai 1953: 9,32). No such requirement exists for the regular members. Their membership in the dbzoku is taken for granted and is inherited from generation to generation for as long as the three criteria continue to be satisfied.

Occasionally the descent line of the stem family of a dbzoku member may through some misfortune be broken. For example, when a married heir dies without issue to perpetuate the household and family line, it may be necessary, in order to ensure the continued existence of the family and household, for his widow to remain in his household and remarry. If the levirate is practiced, as it has been sometimes, then the descent line can be maintained intact. How- ever, if the levirate is not possible, the widow, herself an outsider who has married into her husband’s household from a nonrelated family, has to marry another nonrelated outsider. Their children will, of course, have no descent connection with the original stem family of the household and its dbzoku. In one such case in a hamlet near Nakayashiki the household lost its membership in the dbzoku. The reason given by the villagers for this loss of membership was that the widow was, after all, an outsider, and therefore could not act as a legitimate link in the descent line of a member household in the dbzoku. The widow, however, had antagonized the head of the main household in the dbzoku in which her husband’s household had belonged. Some villagers suggested that if she had remained on friendly and cooperative terms with her husband’s dbzoku, her household probably could have remained in the dbzoku on a probationary status, even though the descent line was broken.

In a neighboring hamlet a widow and her children by a second husband were permitted to perpetuate the family line and maintain the membership of the household in the dbzoku. The household was cooperative in dbzoku and hamlet affairs, and for that reason the villagers were willing to overlook the broken descent line. The fiction was thereby perpetuated that the widow was herself a daughter of the household and had married an adopted husband. In several generations it can be expected that the break in the descent line will be forgot ten.

In such cases the importance of maintaining the family and household line, along with the benefits to be derived from large dbzoku memberships, usually takes precedence over descent. Since a widow, her second husband, and their children will all have the family name of her deceased husband, there will be little to remind the villagers that the household no longer has a legitimate pedigree for membership in the dbzoku. Because a common family name is now one of the symbols of common descent and dbzoku unity, the widow and her children have this distinct advantage over the fictive members of the dbzoku that were established by indigent servants with different family names.

Even though the criterion of descent alone does not close the membership in the group, for option is possible because of other criteria, membership in a dbzoku is not normally ambiguous. Any adult villager can readily list the mem-

1138 American Anthropologisl [68, 1966

bers of each of the dbzoku in Nakayashiki and the neighboring hamlets. More- over, the members of the dbzoku are wholly committed to that one unit and to no other. The only exception to this total commitment is the relatively rare fictive member who retains some loyalty to his distant natal dbzoku in addition to his ties with the dbzoku to which he later attached himself. Because he does not satisfy all the criteria for full membership in either group, he may therefore divide his loyalties. This possibility for the fictive member also illustrates the peripheral and incomplete nature of his attachment to the dbzoku of his new neighborhood.

The criteria of descent and branching in Nakayashiki are such that no overlapping regular memberships in dbzoku are possible on the basis of these two factors alone. However, what does occasionally give ambiguity to membership in a dbzoku is a lack of preciseness in the territorial definitions of the group. For example, sometimes a dbzoku will split or segment on geographical rather than genealogical grounds. One household in a hamlet near Nakaya- shiki had several branch households that were situated in a neighborhood some distance away from the main household and its dbzoku. The distance was not great, requiring only about 15 minutes to walk, but i t represented the limits of the dbzoku residence requirements. For some time these households considered themselves full members of the dbzoku of their main household, and they participated in all its activities. However, recently they have begun to organize into their own independent dbzoku, and their ties with the original dbzoku are decreasing. During this fission, therefore, there is some confusion among the villagers as to the extent of the territorial limits of the parent dbzoku and whether these separated branch households should be included in its membership or not. Nevertheless, such ambiguous memberships for d6zoku are the exception, not the rule.

The regular members of a Nakayashiki dbzoku, then, consist of a main household and its branch and subbranch households, all of which are in the same neighborhood and share descent from the common ancestor of the dbzoku. The dbzoku has, furthermore, a unity of its own, which is in addition to this network of consanguineal relationships linking the individual households.’O There is a strong group identity, in which all the members share equally, ir- respective of their position in the network of main, branch, and subbranch relationships. Moreover, there is a corporation of mutual rights and duties, in which all the households share because of their common membership in the dtizoku. In the local dialect the technical or generic term the villagers use to refer to such groups is e&shi, instead of the academic word “dbzoku,” with which they are not familiar.

The Nakayashiki dbzoku, or edbshi, are not, however, corporate in the usual sense of the word. That is, they have no property that is held in common for their members. Furthermore, the Nakayashiki dbzoku rarely, and some never, meet as exclusive groups, although the villagers often talk as if they do. Usually whenever a dbzoku meets, there will also be other kinsmen and close neighbors in attendance. Nevertheless, the sense of belonging is very strong

BROWN] D6zoku & Descenl Ideology in Japan 1139

with the villagers, and dbzoku membership is the point of reference for much of their interaction.

Although the membership units of the d6zoku are the households, not individuals (Hall and Beardsley 1965:81), the relationship of the households is a reflection of the relationship of individuals in their stem families. In each of the stem families there is a t least one person who has a pedigree that leads back to the common ancestor of the d6zoku. These persons form the “core” of the d6zoku in the sense that the relationship of their pedigrees to each other de- termines the position and status of their respective households in the ddzoku. But these core people do not constitute the dbzoku; as individuals they have no dbzoku rights, privileges, or obligations. The units that do have these rights and duties are the households, which are the members of the d6zoku.

These core people form a descent unit in that all the members trace their descent from a common ancestor who is the fixed point of reference for the group (Goodenough 1955:72; 1962:s). It is not a descent unit by those definitions that stipulate that membership ascription be exclusively by descent (e.g., Fortes 1959; Leach 1962). That is, membership in the core of the d6zoku is not determined by a descent criterion alone.

There are two aspects of this descent unit that have caused confusion re- garding the Japanese kinship system. The first concerns the nature of the descent rule that obtains in the establishment or recruitment of any new units in the dbzoku. The second concerns the means of ensuring the continuity of each of the member units once they have been established. The latter is not governed by a rule of descent, but rather by a rule of succession. A rule of descent refers to the means by which a unit of consanguineal kinsmen is constituted.” A rule of succession refers to the means by which a status, such as head of the household, is transferred.

In Nakayashiki the descent rule holds that men and women are jurally equal. Any child recognized as being an offspring of one of the core members has a right by birth to establish a household with membership in the d6zoku. Therefore the core people of the dbzoku constitute a cognatic descent unit, as defined by Freeman (1961: 199). That is, they acknowledge their descent, genealogically or by adoption, from one family, through their fathers or their mothers, without all of the persons so descended necessarily included.

In Nakayashiki most daughters and a few men marry into other households and thereby forfeit their right to membership in the ddzoku of their natal household. While these out-marrying people are still alive, however, they have a latent right to membership in that d6zoku. If their marriage breaks up and they return to their natal household, they again have the right to establish n branch household with full membership in the dbzoku of the natal family’s household. If the marriage is not dissolved, the children born from it receive no rights whatsoever to membership in that d6zoku. This is because they cannot satisfy the criterion of branch household.

Similarly, the Nakayashiki person who makes a branch household in Tokyo or another distant city forfeits the right to membership in the ddzoku of his


natal household in the country. This is because the criterion of residence is not satisfied. However, because the criteria of “branch” and descent are met by these households in the distant cities, they too have a latent claim to membership. This claim can be activated by relocating within the territorial boundaries of the dbzoku. This latent claim is ideally passed on in the family from generation to generation and to any subbranches i t may establish. They only need to return to the neighborhood of the main household and prove the legitimacy of their pedigree.

Very few people in Nakayashiki activate the right acquired by birth to membership in their natal dbzoku. In many instances only one child of the household in each generation takes up the option of becoming a member of the core descent unit of the dbzoku; this is the person who remains in the household to perpetuate the family line. His option for membership in the descent unit is predetermined by the rule of succession; by dint of that rule, this person, by remaining in the household, also takes up the option of membership in the dbzoku core. But by the rule of descent he (or she) has no more or no less right by birth to membership in the core of the d6zoku than the other siblings, the excess children. Such a situation is possible because membership is not closed by the criterion of descent alone.

The options available in accordance with the descent rule are not whether to join either or both of the mother’s or the father’s d6zoku, but whether to join the group of one’s natal family-that is, to remain in the household or establish a new branch household in the neighborhood of the d6zoku. By birth a person has the right to membership in only one group. The choice is limited to a simple “yes” or “no,” and does not include “which” or “how many.” This is a critical difference between dazoku and many ambilateral systems, such as the Maori hapu (Firth 1963), for example.

The genealogical skeletons of dbzoku groups in Nakayashiki show a preponderance of branch households founded by sons, and thus at the level of the statistical network of relations-at the phenomenal level-a dbzoku looks very much like a patrilineage, or patriclan. Only about 26 percent of the branch households in Nakayashiki have women as their points of origin and reference, and the proportion is even less in some neighboring hamlets.

But this fact does not reflect only the descent ideology in Nakayashiki. The multiple decisions that result in this seemingly patrilineal structure are also influenced by many nondescent factors, not the least of which is the ecology of the area.

For example, if a man can find a job or means of subsistence only in a distant city, i t is unlikely that excess sons will establish their own independent households in the neighborhood of their rural dbzoku (Raper 1950:210). In these circumstances, making a branch household in the neighborhood of the natal family will be undertaken only under the pressure of some problem, such as what to do with a sickly daughter. These factors will therefore affect the proportion of men to women taking up the option to join the dbzoku of their natal household.

Secondly, given the present succession rule of male primogeniture, it is

BROWN] D6zoku 6. Descent Ideology in Japan 1141

much easier for daughters to marry into other families than it is for sons. There- fore, fewer daughters than sons are available to make new branch households with membership in the dbzoku. Since male primogeniture is a new practice in some parts of Japan, we could also expect that a change has occurred in the proportion of daughters who have made branch households with their adopted husbands. Nevertheless, the present cultural ideology of descent obtaining in the membership recruitment of dbzoku holds that men and women are struc- turally equivalent.

IDEAL BRANCHES

I t should be pointed out here that even though men and women are struc- turally equivalent with respect to the jural rules for membership recruitment into the dbzoku, some types of branching are recognized by the people in Nakayashiki as being better than others (rippa na bude).12 The branch household established by a strong, healthy junior brother who receives more than two or three acres of paddy field from the large estate of his natal family, for example, will be an excellent bunke and will be admired as such by neighbors and re1ati~es.I~ The branch household of the weak and unattractive sister, on the other hand, will not exactly incite the envy and esteem of those same neighbors and relatives, especially if it received only a small plot of land from the main family at the time of branching.

If a family, without threatening the base of its own status, can provide its excess children with the resources, whether in land or education, for a respec- table livelihood, it will command the admiration of others. Therefore, the branch household established by a junior son who receives a considerable amount of land can point with pride to such an origin.

On the other hand, the object of the family is to provide for its excess daughters by arranging good marriages for them. Hence the branch household established as a last resort for the handicapped daughter will symbolize a possible failure a t some of the more idealized solutions of what to do with, or for, excess daughters. To this extent, then, the ideal branch household is one established by a son.

It is misleading, however, to impute a patrilineal ideology to the Nakaya- shiki dbzoku just because i t is a son who establishes the ideal type of branch household. For one thing, there are some excess sons who establish branch households under conditions considerably less than optimal, but such households are no less members of the dbzoku than are those established under the most ideal circumstances. The branch household established with economic resources acquired solely through the efforts of its founder, with no help from the main family, for example, will not receive the admiration that some others might receive. But the circumstances surrounding the process of branching and the admiration held for certain kinds of branching in no way affect the assumption of the rights and duties that full membership in the dbzoku carries.

Moreover, the ritual status of a new branch household in the dbzoku is not affected by the nature of its branching from the main household and family.


Ritual status within the dbzoku is determined by other criteria, primarily genealogical. For example, the branch household established by a handicapped sister will rank higher ritually in its dazoku than will that of her younger brother founded under more ideal circumstances. This is because her seniority in age makes her superior to him, a t least with respect to membership and ritual status in the dbzoku.

Genealogical position and seniority affect the very real problem of where to seat whom at the many ceremonies in which dbzoku members participate. A host will spend a considerable amount of energy and will consult various local experts in planning a seating arrangement. This is necessary, for the seating arrangement reflects the relative status of each of the guests and their respective households. Should a guest feel slighted because of the host’s carelessness in accounting for all of the genealogical facts, the reputation of the host will suffer. Therefore, if there are two branch households founded by a brother and a sister, both now dead, i t is important for the host to know which of the two siblings was older, and to seat their descendants accordingly. But i t is not important for the host to know which was founded by the sister and which was founded by the brother, because the sex of the founder is not a factor in the hierarchy of the dazoku or, consequently, in the planning of the seating arrangement.

If asked for the genealogy of a dbzoku, a villager may sometimes give a man’s name as the founder of a particular household when, in fact, further research in the town archives will reveal that the supposed founder was an adopted h~sband.’~ His wife, an excess daughter in the main household, would have been the real founder of the household, or a t least its legitimate link with the rest of the dbzoku. Such discrepancies in information are not so much the result of a desire to “correct” the genealogical charter into a more patrilineal form, but rather reflect a lack of interest or significance in the sex distinction in matters of descent. There may be more prestige if one can list, or suggest, a samurai rather than the samurai’s sister as the founding ancestor, but such facts have no bearing on the legitimacy of a household’s claim to membership in a dbzoku or on its ritual status thereafter. Thus the sex of the actual founder may be forgotten after several generations. And after all, when there is doubt, the percentages are with the person who lists the man rather than his wife as the founder.

If there were a patrilineal ideology in Nakayashiki, it could be expected that some fiction or rationalization would be perpetuated to legitimatize the status of those branch households and families founded by excess daughters. For example, when the Nuer account for the “irregularities” in their patrilineal descent, they resort to myths (Evans-Pritchard 1940: 229-230) or explain the deviance with the comment that “she has become a man” (Evans-Prit- chard 1951: 16). There is no evidence of any such devices in Nakayashiki, nor are there any special rituals that only those households founded by women must undergo in order to legitimatize their status in the ddzoku. There is no need for them, Among the Nuer,attached lineages tracing their descent through females are only incompletely assimilated and “are regarded in certain situa-

BROWN] Dbzoku b Descent Ideology in Japan 1143

tions and in a certain sense as part of i t and in other situations and in a different sense as not part of it” (Evans-Pritchard 1951:23). In Nakayashiki, on the other hand, branches tracing their descent through females are full and unqualified members of the dbzoku.

Therefore, the people of Nakayashiki do not try to suppress, although they may forget, the information that a particular branch household had as its point of origin an excess daughter from the main family. One important branch household in a Nakayashiki dbzoku readily listed a woman as its founder seven generations ago. Whether the founder was a man or woman is relatively unim- portant to them and is not a critical factor in the behavior of the descendants in such households. What is important is the genealogical position of the founder in relationship to that of the other core members of the dbzoku.

ADOPTED HUSBANDS

One of the most critical points in the analysis of descent in Japan is the interpretation given to the status of adopted husbands (m~ho-ydslti).16 The usual explanation of the adopted husband is that he is just another ethnographic example of the patrilineal line’s being continued by the fiction that the daughter’s husband is really a son (Befu 1963:1339; Hall and Beardsley 1965: 77). Admittedly, the adopted husband inherits his wife’s family estate, or a portion of it, when they establish a new branch household.16 Furthermore, in cases where a family line is being perpetuated, the adopted husband succeeds his wife’s father as head of the household and family. In many respects, then, the adopted husband assumes the role of a son, and a patrilineal line through sons and/or adopted sons appears to be intact.

However, the status of the adopted husband differs in many respects from that of a son, or even from that of an adopted son. It is argued here that the status of adopted husbands can be better understood if i t is considered to- gether with that of the other kind of in-marrying a5ne, i.e., the in-marrying bride. This is, in fact, the way the people of Nakayashiki perceive their marriages. They often discuss the two parties of any marriage arrangement as the “receiving side” and the “sending side,” rather than as the groom’s side and the bride’s side. By receiving side, they mean the stem family and household that is gaining a new member in the marriage, and the sending side is the one that is losing a member. It makes little difference whether the receiving side is gaining a bride or an adopted husband, or whether the sending side is giving a daughter as a bride or a son as an adopted husband. In either case the betrothal gift (yuind) is paid by the family that will be receiving the new member a t the wedding. It will in turn receive with the in-marrying person his or her full wardrobe, bedding, and other needed household items, which are delivered by the sending side on the day of the wedding. The in-marrying person also takes the name of his or her new stem family.

The relationship between the two families involved in the marriage is the same whether it is a bride or an adopted husband who is received. Visiting and other responsibilities are similar in either case (Embree 1939:84). If the marriage breaks up and the bride or adopted husband goes back to her or his natal


household, the receiving side must return the betrothal gift and pay for the services gained during the marriage. The receiving household will also keep any children born of the marriage, whether the mother was an in-marrying bride or a daughter of the house.

There is, therefore, nothing to suggest that the adopted husband is anything other than an in-marrying affine. Because he is a male and performs male roles, he shares many features with a son. But because he is an in-marrying affine, he also differs from a son and, accordingly, has some similarities with an in-marrying bride. Even in the areas of authority where men normally dominate over women, the adopted husband differs from a son. Hen-pecked husbands exist even in male-centered Japan, and it is assumed as a matter of course that the wife will “wear the pants” much of the time in a household with an adopted husband. He can, after all, be sent back if his wife’s family finds him unacceptable, and Beardsley reports that “in Niiike, an adopted groom’s performance is judged as strictly as a young wife’s’’ (1959: 238).

If it is going to be argued that the adopted husband becomes like a son, or a t least like an adopted son, then it can equally be argued that an in-marrying bride becomes like a daughter or an adopted daughter. The similarities of the in-marrying bride and an adopted daughter were noted by Hearn many years ago (1904: 74-80) and by Vogel more recently (1963: 166). Hearn made the following statement in 1904:

The girl adopted into a household as wife ranks only as an adopted child: marriage signifies adoption. . . , In like manner, and for the same reasons, the young man received into a household as a husband of one of the daughters, ranks merely as an adopted son. The adopted bride or bridegroom is necessarily subject to the elders, and may be dismissed by their decision. As for the adopted husband, his position is both delicate and di5mlt. , . . Jacob does not have to wait for Rachel: he is given to Rachel on demand; and his service then begins. And after twice wen years of eervice, Jacob may be Bent away. In that event his children do not any more belong to him, but to the family [1904:74-751.

Vogel reports that “in Tokugawa census registers, a young wife is often listed as daughter without being distinguished from a true daughter of the household” (1963: 166).”

It therefore seems just as logical to impute an ideology for matrilineal descent to the Japanese as it does to impute a patrilineal ideology. However, if close attention is given to the ideals and values concerning marriage, the adopted husband status becomes much clearer. His marriage need not be considered a “complete contrast with what might be called a ‘normal’ marriage’’ (Temm 1961:30), nor is it useful to consider him a son. His wedding and the marriage that follows are quite consistent with others in the hamlet. More- over, the status of an adopted husband is quite consonant with the cognatic descent principle that accounts for the membership recruitment of dbzoku units.

TERMINOLOGY

One additional factor strengthens the argument that Japanese rural culture does not include a patrilineal ideology, The standard kinship terminology is bilaterally symmetrical and of the Eskimo type, by Murdock’s classification (1949:223). Moreover, that this is not a recent development of the modern

BROWN] Dbzoku & Descent Ideology in Japan 1145

industrial era is attested to by the convincing data presented by Robert J. Smith (1962a,b). He shows that there have been no significant changes in the terminological pattern for a millennium or more, a t least in some segments of Japanese society. Therefore, if a patrilineal descent ideology does exist in Japan, i t seems strange that there is no reflection of this in the kinship termin-

However, a recent paper by Wallace (1965) has raised some stimulating questions about the usual “Anglicized” model of Japanese kinship terminology. Although Wallace’s primary intent was not to present a complete analysis of the Japanese terminology system, the fact that his informant gave him information that indicated asymmetry and lineality in the “psychologically real meaning” of the Japanese kin terms is pertinent to the argument of this paper and must, if possible, be accounted for.

First of all, although I did not employ Wallace’s methodology in analyzing the kin terms of Nakayashiki, there is nothing to indicate that it would not elicit similar information from at least some of the people there. That is, his data cannot be dismissed summarily on the basis that “my village” is different, or that his informant is not representative-her responses do not seem out of line with what might be expected after studying the kinship system in Nakayashiki using different techniques.

Secondly, because the people of Nakayashiki attach special significance to the stem family and household into which they are born, even after they have left it for marriage or to establish their own family and household, those who have in common the same natal stem family and household interact to a much greater extent than those genealogically comparable relatives who are related through the parent who married in. For example, if one’s mother married into the stem family, her siblings will come to her new household much less than will the father’s siblings, who were born into the household but left as excess children. Similarly, if one’s father married into the household as an adopted husband, his siblings will play a much less important role in household affairs than will the mother’s siblings (see also Johnson 1964:840).

Therefore, the asymmetrical bias, which Wallace’s informant later corrected, may be reflecting this special significance that is attributed to one’s natal stem family and household-the jikka for a bride who has married out. It would appear that the lineality in the ‘(psychologically real meaning” of the kin terms does not represent a bias toward the father’s line as such, and it does not reflect a patrilineal ideology. Rather, the lineal bias may merely reflect the special importance attributed to one’s own stem family and the relatives who have left it as excess children. Giveu the present rule for male primogeniture, this will more often than not mean that one’s own natal stem family is also that of one’s father and his siblings, not that of one’s mother. Therefore i t is not surprising that such a patrilineal bias should appear in the information gathered by Wallace and Atkins. Nor is the later correction surprising either, since the “corrected” version can accommodate either type of marriage.

The interpretation ofiered here for the interesting results of the analysis by Wallace and Atkins can easily be tested by comparing the meaning of the kin

OlOgy.


terms for people who were born into their father’s stem family with the meaning of the terms for those who were born into their mother’s stem family. That is, did Miss Kameyama’s mother marry into her stem family, as seems likely, or did her father marry in as an adopted husband, a contingency that would seriously damage the interpretation given here?

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

This paper has attempted to demonstrate that while the genealogies of the Nakayashiki dbzoku show a preponderance of agnatic or patrilineal links, in the ideational order of the Nakayashiki people the dbzoku are cognatic descent groups constituted in part by cognatic rules of descent. The membership of such groups is not constituted by descent principles alone, however, inasmuch as the fact of branching and proximity of residence are equal requirements. Even though the ideology of descent is cognatic and though dbzoku membership is determined in part by other, nondescent factors, the membership is not normally ambiguous and each regular member is committed to one and only one dbzoku group.

The position that dbzoku are constituted by a cognatic rule of descent rests on a clear distinction between descent and succession. In contrast with the principles of descent, szcccession in the ideology of the Nakayashiki people is in accordance with the rule of male primogeniture, that is, it is patrilineal.

That descent is a value with some ideological significance is attested to by the qualitatively different status of those households that are attached to some of the Nakayashiki dbzoku without legitimate descent connections. Descent as a value operates in conjunction with other values, ideals, and beliefs in the Nakayashiki ideology, and some of these will on occasion take precedence over descent, For example, the value that the stem family and its household must continue indefinitely ranks very high in the Nakayashiki ideology, and in certain circumstances takes precedence over the value placed on descent.

The value for descent makes no distinctions on the basis of sex, but because it operates in a wide variety of historical, ecological, and social settings and because it is not the only criterion for membership in the dGzoku, the proportion of agnatic to uterine links in the genealogies of different dbzoku will vary. Therefore, dbzoku made up of families operating inns and tea houses can be found with ahigh preponderanceof uterine ties, while the dbzokuof theNakaya- shiki farmers will have a preponderance of agnatic ties. Furthermore, there are some communities where, because of the lack of opportunity for branching in the same hamlet, no dbzoku at all exist. Nevertheless, it is possible that in all three situations the ideology with respect to descent is the same.

The implications of this denial of a patrilineal ideology for dbzoku descent reach beyond the realm of definitional problems and “model manipulations.” Such an analysis allows some understanding of the strange regional distribu- tion patterns of seemingly different descent systems in Japan. It is possible that two neighboring hamlets will phenomenally be quite different with respect to the presence or absence of d6zoku or in the nature of the genealogies of their dbzoku. Nevertheless, it is not necessary to postulate different descent ideolo-

BROWN] Dbzoku & Descent Ideology in Japan 1147

gies for the different hamlets. For example, i t is not necessary to postulate an alien matrilineal ideology for the tea house families just because their genealogies show a preponderance of matrilineal links in the various lines of descent of the dbzoku members.

This is not to say that there are no regional differences in the culture or ideology of Japan, because obviously there are many. But it does suggest that closer attention should be given to the ideology of descent to see what regional variations there are, because the Nakayashiki data show that the same descent ideology can result in phenomenally quite different kinds of descent groups.

The cognatic descent ideology in Nakayashiki permits wide variation in its expression-if it has the opportunity of being expressed-and thus is adaptable to a wide range of situations. In a complex and rapidly changing society such as Japan, with its variety of occupations, environmental and ecological settings and personalities and individual abilities, the ideology of descent must be flexible enough to accommodate many different kinds of situations. Cognatic descent has this flexibility, whereas, as Eggan has pointed out (1950: 6-7; 1955 : 494-495, 549-550), unilineal descent is more specialized and therefore less capable of such variation and flexibility. By the same token, in complex societies there are more possibilities for a wide range of phenomenal structures emanating from the same or similar ideologies because there is a greater variation in the social, cultural, and ecological environments.

The adaptability of cognatic descent ideology in this complex society does not explain its origin in Japan, although we can now begin to collect more data and re-evaluate our interpretations of Japanese history to see if cognatic descent as an ideology had its beginning during the modern era. The adaptability of cognatic descent ideology, however, does help to explain the persistence of descent groups in modern Japan in such communities as Nakayashiki.

The final implications of this analysis are for cross-cultural research. For one thing, this study reiterates the point that in making cross-cultural comparisons one should not confuse ideational with phenomenal facts. Secondly, it should be recognized that comparisons based on phenomenal facts to a considerable extent introduce variables extending outside the cultural system -ecology, occupation, environment, and so forth. Finally, this analysis makes the argument again that over-all labels for entire kinship systems are difficult to defend, even when their point of reference is restricted to either the ideational or the phenomenal order exclusively. For example, even though the descent rule in Nakayashiki is cognatic, to assign priorities and call the Nakayashiki kinship ideology a cognatic system would be misleading, for succession in the ideology of the Nakayashiki people is clearly patrilineal.

NOTES

1 This paper is a revised version of the prize paper read in the student competition at the 1964 meetings of the Central States Anthropological Society. The research was supported by a Public Health Service fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health and an Andrew Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. Both sources are gratefully acknowledged here, as is the award from the Central States Anthropological Society. Harumi Befu, John Cornell, Erwin Johnson, Len Plotnicov, Robert J. Smith, Michio Suenari, Arthur Tuden, and Joyce Wike

1148 America% Anthropologist [68, 1966 read an earlier draft of this paper, and their comments were most helpful and gratefully accepted.

a Dbzokic is a term coined by Japanese sociologists to refer to a particular type of social phenomenon known by a wide variety of local terms throughout Japan (Johnson 1964:840). The term is both singular and plural in Japanese and thus can be used in referring to one dazoku group or many dazoku.

a Among other people who have explicitly used similar distinctions are Fortes (1949), Geertz (1959), and more recently Sahlins (1965).

4 See Murdock (1960:4) for a definition of stem family. For descriptions of the Japanese example, see Beardsley d d. (1959:216-247), Johnson (1964), and Vogel (1965).

6 I am indebted to Takashi Nakano for introducing me to this system (see especially 1949: 325- 326). For a detailed study of merchant dazoku see his monumental work of 1964,

II Comparative studies of rural Japanese social structure invariably involve some form or another of the d6zoku and kbgumi typology (Fukutake 1949; Izumi and Gamo 1952; Ishino and Bennett 1953; Izumi and Nagashima 1963; Ogyu 1964). In contrast to communities with viable dazoku groups, the kbgumi type of community, or Southwestern type an it is sometimes called, is characterized by associations of households constituted on the basis of locality or neighborhood, and not descent. Interhousehold kinship ties in the kd-gumi type are not points of orientation for the formation of any continuing social units; rather, they obtain only in the sphere of bilateral personal kindreds.

1 See Cornell (1963; 1964:457) for a discussion of the importance of territory in dazoku organization.

* Expulsion from the d6zoku in this manner can take place without a similar or concomitant expulsion or ostracism from the hamlet as a whole. For a discussion of ostracism in the Japanese village, see Robert J. Smith (1961).

0 See Schneider (1965: 293) on the priority and permanence of blood relationship in American kinship. Schneider has had a considerable influence on the thinking behind this paper (for example, in a later discussion on the ambiguity in dazoku membership).

10 That the rights and duties obtained through common membership in a dazoku may be separate from the rights and duties obtained through having individual or particular ties of bran&- ing with other dazoku members has frequently been overlooked. While the evidence for t h i s is not insignificant, it does not lie within the scope of this paper. However, there are innumerable and excellent descriptions in Japanese of the interaction between the main household and its branch and subbranch households. Most notable are the works of Ariga (1939) and Nakano (1964). Some of the more extensive reports and summaries in English are in Nagai (1953), Dore (1958; 1959), Beardsley d d. (1959), Thomas Smith (1959), Bennett and Ishino (1963), Comell (1964), and Hall and Beardsley (1965).

11 This de6nition of descent rule is taken from that utilized by Schneider (1961:2). I am grateful to Harumi Befu (personal communications) for pointing out to me the signifi-

cant fact that equal legitimacy of membership does not imply an equal preference for the m w of acquiring membership. He is not, of course, responsible for the interpretation given to it here.

18 The average landholding for the 31 households in Nakayashiki was about three acres. So any new household that could start out with that much land would be in an enviable position in- deed:

14 Robert J. Smith, for example, has found in a survey of mortuary tablets in Nakayashiki and other communities in Japan, a tendency among his informants to alter the remote genealogical record to fit a more patrilineal pattern.

u The translation of the term muko-yashi as “adopted husband” is the literal translation usually found in the literature. Although I have followed the accepted usage here, I do not mean to imply by it that he becomes an adopted son, as the discussion that follows should clearly indicate.

1) Note that this individual or personal ownership of the land by the head of the household is a relatively recent development in Japan. Prior to the Meiji era the stem family collectively held title to the land as a corporate body. The head of the household therefore could act only as spoke+ man for his group, not as its sole shareholder (Ariga 1956b:216).

17 I am getting this information third hand from reading Vogel. He gives credit for it to Robert J. Smith.

BROWN] D6zoku & Descent Ideology in Japan 1149

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dozoku and the ideology of descent in rural japan

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